Hal the high school slob

A hairy beast stumbled out the door.

"Damn it, Hal!" Or, apparently, it was just Hal Boon. A slim, brown-haired girl in gym shorts and a tanktop made a show of averting her eyes, her thin but smooth, nicely defined body tinged by the afternoon light. "Put on a shirt, you'll blind the neighbors with your excess lipid retention."

"Shut it, Martha," Hal snorted at his laundry-carrying sister. Speaking of shirts. "It's hot as hell for crying out loud."

"Watch the tongue, young man."

"Mom?" the greasy half-naturalist looked up, as if to heaven. She was as sapient as ever. "Where are you?"

"She's in the kitchen, idiot."

"No one asked you, sis."

"Just let him be, Martha," Mrs. Boon finally broke it up, exasperated, the pretty-faced woman bringing her head out from behind the divider, "I asked him to get the mail, anyway." With that she returned to her cooking, Martha went back to heading for the washer downstairs after sticking her tongue out at her brother, and Hal proceeded out without a shirt, to the mailbox.

After a faint scream or two in the distance, Hal returned with some random bills, a wrong address, a car sale promo, another wrong address, a school letter, and some plain, black envelope. On second glance, it was probably the plainest, blackest envelope he had ever set eyes upon in his 18 glorious, idolized years of life. And it was almost as amazing as that.

Like a light to a fly Hal drew towards it, pulled in as if by some invisible magnet.

Then he blinked, closed his eyes, and sneezed, sending everything everywhere.

"Aw fuck," he cursed and, sighing, scooped them up and lazily tossed them onto the coffee table, ignoring his mother's reprimanding. After a second blink, he glanced at the plain black envelope and swiped it from the others. He went upstairs to his ravaged room and plopped into his creaky chair and slipped a finger underneath the fold, opening it.

As he read it, his eyes were slits. It seemed like a strain until finally he was looking at the space at the bottom, supposedly reserved for his signature.

"What the fuck?" he grumbled. This had to do something with sister, probably. The fancy words and whole roleplay thing wasn't really his scene. Either someone was messing with him, or... suddenly, his eyes lit up, and he looked at the letter again.

'How to Use Your New Vocabulary'

Using the word may while asking for permission for whatever is desired will always result in being granted that permission, even when not outright verbally stated by the permitter, as long as the permitter hears and/or knows you are asking something.

However, using "can't" afterward, in reference to whatever was permitted, will cancel the affirmation, and return all affected people and things to their previous understanding/state. Using "may not" will have no effect. On the other hand, using "can" or any other term while asking for permission will be treated normally and without the beneficial effects of the 'may' trigger.

When using the trigger, there is a blanket effect that carries down from anyone with some kind of authority over others -- for instance, if asking the manager of a business if one "may" bed all the female employees, and the manager agrees, this will make all other employees and subordinates accept any actions related to the request as reasonable, even when they were not present during the request or not directly told after it, as long as they consider themselves in service to the one who gave permission.

If you acknowledge this geas, sign your name in order to be given its power. (Only the one signing can receive the geas.) Once signed, return the letter to a cover and seal it, then leave it in a safe container, where no one will open it, for one hour -- if this fails, an anti-geas will befall you, and everything you ask will instead be denied, and all that 'may-be' will only work against you, until you repeat the ritual. Much love, nobody.

Hal nodded, knowing exactly what this was.

It was part of some dumb creative project by Martha, of course, and it was her signature that was meant to go on there. Her art club projects were always pretty silly stuff. Hal's eyes went up and down the letter. It looked fancy alright, with curvy lettering and bordered with what looked like a bunch of overly drawn twigs.

Nodding triumphantly to himself, he pulled out a pen only to find it had no ink, so looked for another one. When he'd made it to the second curve of his name, his phone vibrated against the desk nearby. "Tch," he looked over, seeing a latest text from miss hot stuff herself, Penelope Vans.

'Stop texting me pls... I don't even know you.' Hm. Sounded like Penelope alright. She was a part of the high school's volleyball team and also one of its pretty, tight little things. Her and her circle of friends enjoyed going around pretending the world was supposed to be a friendly and accommodating place. Hal rolled his eyes. He really wished he could show those nice guy-and-nice-girl bubbles a certain protrusion that came out of his body and pop it for them. After he managed to nab her digits from a conversation he'd overheard between her and her supposedly new pretty boy BF, Wyatt (coincidentally decided during that very convo he ninja'd), he'd texted her -- after introducing himself, of course -- asking if she knew about his bisexual tendencies. Predictably she just called him a creep. But what if Wyatt really was a bisexual? What if this was just a hint at the things he had hidden in that closet of fatass skeletons? What if, he was just playing it straight? What if he was a fool in love with his good friend and head football quarter-back Duncan Codner and couldn't admit it because of his natural wussiness?

You can never be too sure.

Chuckling to himself, Hal ignored Penelope's text and finished his signature, taking up as much space in the corner as his pen could afford. It looked more like chicken scratch, and that worked for him. Checking the envelope, he suddenly noticed the return address, but for some reason as he scrawled it onto a new envelope he found in a nearby drawer he felt hazy trying to remember it. Then just as quickly the thought left him and he had moved on.

Remembering what the letter said, he got a piece of Scotch tape, taped the new envelope shut with the letter inside it, then snuck out to the mailbox. "This must be how special agents feel like," Hal speculated. With an obligatory pat, he closed the mailbox, the envelope safely inside, and returned with a plop to his bed, drifting into a snore-filled sleep as the Sunday waned on without him.